Unimaginable
by dear-lovely
Summary: "That'll be enough for now."


This story was written for the Tenth Round of the Seventh Season of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. I'm writing as Beater 1 for the Tutshill Tornados.

Name of the round: **Kill Them or Save Them**

Description: You will choose a character and reverse their fate. Whether you focus on the moment that changed whether they lived or died, or you show the impact, the aftermath of their fate through someone else's eyes, or whatever is entirely up to you.

I chose to **kill Neville**.

These are the optional prompts I'm using:

1\. (song) "**It's Quiet Uptown" - Hamilton**

9\. (spell) **Crucio**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. J.K. Rowling owns everything from the Harry Potter universe and Lin Manuel-Miranda owns his beautiful song.

WARNING: Multiple deaths occur, including one of a child.

Thanks to my team for betaing!

* * *

Title: **Unimaginable**

Word Count: **2230**

* * *

It was Hallowe'en of 1981, and Neville was dressed as a jack-o-lantern. One of Frank's Muggleborn friends bought it for him in the hopes of entertaining them inside their wretched safe house. Alice couldn't complain about the state of the place, though, if it meant that it was protecting Neville from Voldemort. So there they were, sitting on the floor of their living room, Alice bouncing a giggling pumpkin-Neville while Frank looked adoringly at the two of them.

A loud boom came from the front entrance and a horde of Death Eaters stormed into their living room, led by a wild-haired woman cackling as she came into sight.

"How lovely, the whole gang's here," Bellatrix sardonically disrupted.

Alice frantically met Frank's eyes, instantly regretting their decision to tuck their wands away for the night. Although she wasn't the best at wandless magic, she tried to summon her wand to no avail.

Bellatrix interrupted their staring contest. "Looking for these?" she waved around the air. To their demise, their intruder held four broken wand fragments in her hand, which she promptly threw to the side. "Now that we got that out of the way, I just need your baby and we'll be on our way."

"NO!" Frank bellowed as he stood to cover them. "You will not—"

"_Crucio_!" she interrupted him, pointing her wand at his chest. Frank fell to the ground, spasming from the pain. "Yaxley, would you be a dear and take care of him? And the rest of you, join him. I can take care of things here."

The hooded figure nodded in response, a smile playing on his lips as he kicked the man into the kitchen and repeated the same curse over and over again. The rest of the mob followed them, leaving Bellatrix alone with Alice and Neville.

"Frank!" Alice sobbed out loud, clutching close to Neville but unwilling to tear her eyes off her husband.

Bellatrix turned back to them. "Oh, shut up. Now, where were we? Ah yes, I need _that one_." She waved her finger towards Neville's direction.

Alice rolled over to hide Neville from view. "_Over my dead body_!" she screeched.

"Well, it won't go that far if you cooperate. But seeing that you aren't the type to give up, bloody Gryffindor, then I'll do what I must. _Crucio_!"

"_NO_!" Alice howled, her body immediately hitting the floor. Despite all the pain she felt, the only thing on her mind was Neville. As best as she could, she sheltered her baby near her chest.

Bellatrix giggled like the insane person she was. With a taunting baby voice, she jeered, "You think hiding ickle wittle Neville from me is going to help you?" She jarringly changed back to her regular voice, "Well, it's not. _CRUCIO_!"

Alice writhed in pain, her screams echoing throughout the entire house. She could see Neville on his knees, shaking her shoulder and trying to figure out what's wrong with her. She didn't have the strength to pull him towards the ground away from sight, so she did the next best thing she could think of; she cried louder to distract Bellatrix from her main mission.

"Oh, for Salazar's sake!" Bellatrix huffed. "I hope you know that you're making this more complicated than it needs to be."

Alice cried louder in response, whose cries were joined by Neville's.

"And now I have to deal with a crying baby after this? He was fine before you disturbed his reverie!" Bellatrix complained. "Just remember that you brought this onto yourself." She pointed her wand to the back of the sobbing woman on the floor. "_Avada Kedavra_!"

Alice opened her eyes at the sound of those words, mentally preparing herself of her upcoming fate. She felt a tiny hand on her waist, and as she looked up, she saw the image that will haunt her consciousness for the rest of her life.

Neville reached over her shoulder, his face tear-stained and earnest, as he caught the green beam in his outstretched hand.

"_NEVILLE, NO_!" Alice wailed, which was immediately followed by his little body collapsing limply on the ground. She shook his body, waiting for his warmth to return to its vessel. Hugging him tightly, she glared at the other woman. "_What_. _Have_. _You_. _Done_." Alice growled dangerously.

She found Bellatrix fuming, her face a boiled red and her ears letting off steam. "What have _I_ done? You did this to yourself!" she exclaimed. "The Dark Lord will be furious with me. I'm only meant to bring the baby to him alive." Waving her hand in the air, she added, "Never mind that, he'll be even more furious if I didn't punish the person who caused all of this nonsense." She pointed her crooked wand straight towards Alice's forehead. "_AVADA KEDAVRA_!"

They both focused on the green beam, brighter and more vicious than before. Alice's eyes were trained on its path and anticipated its arrival, knowing that there was nothing to shield her from her inevitable death.

That is, until a glistening orb surrounded her body, forcing the beam to bounce back towards Bellatrix and hit her between the eyes. Her body slammed into the wall behind her, sliding its way to the floor.

Alice was stunned. She didn't know what just happened. All she knew was that it saved her life.

She heard heavy footsteps coming out of the kitchen, which had suddenly halted. Alice looked up to see who it was. The man removed his mask, revealing him as one Rodolphus Lestrange.  
He ran to the body slumped against the wall. "Bella? Bella, wake up." He checked her pulse, then slowly turned his head towards the flabbergasted woman behind him. Letting go of the lifeless body, he barked, "_You_! You did this, didn't you?"

Alice shook her head furiously, finding her voice unable to speak.

Rodolphus nodded his head at the same tempo. "Yes, you did! How else could she have died?"

She lifted her hands in protest as her mouth stuttered silently, unable to comprehend the madness of the night.

"No excuses, huh?" He grabbed ahold of her shoulder and slammed her into the ground. "_Crucio_! _Crucio_! _CRUCIO_!"

The pain was intolerable, especially without Neville by her side. She felt her consciousness spiral around again and again until she flew off into the abyss.

* * *

Alice sat straight up. It almost felt like a dream, except that her heart was still aching from the pain of losing Neville. She looked at where she was sitting, which felt different than the awful flooring of their safe house. It was instead a wooden bench, coarse at her fingertips but a paler brown than any other wooden bench she'd ever seen. She lifted her head to inspect her surroundings, which was nothing she had ever expected. Then again, she never expected anything like this.

A large and elaborate multitude of plants circled the bench, aromas of honeysuckle and mint whiffing at her nose. That combination was what she had smelled from Professor Slughorn's batch of Amortentia years ago. It was as if this garden was made specifically for her.

Behind her, there was a single pathway leading to the outside of the garden. Knowing that she'll visit this place again soon, she made the trek to the unknown.

It was a long walk, but it didn't feel that way to Alice. Truthfully, it was difficult to admire the beauty all around her when her mind was solely on Neville. Now that she had time to process what happened, it made the situation all the more unimaginable. Her son, barely fifteen months old, had sacrificed his life for hers. It may not have been a conscious decision, but it was his decision all the same. She didn't know what they did to deserve such a brave, kind-hearted son, but she was grateful and proud of him.

The pathway led her to a white circular gazebo laced with vines. She hadn't noticed until now that the garden shifted to something more lush and overgrown than before. It reminded her of the woodsy area of Hogwarts that Frank used to spend his time studying in. The gazebo had clear panels except for the entrance facing her. Her gut told her to open it.

As soon as her hand twisted the door handle, her eye caught on the man standing in the middle of the gazebo. "Frank?" she whispered in disbelief.

He turned around and saw her standing there. "Alice!"

Both of them ran towards each other, meeting in the middle with a cushioning hug. They stood there, hugging each other for what seemed like an eternity. With her head against his chest and his on top of hers, they melted into each other perfectly.

After a while, Alice looked up and met his eyes, concern written all over her face. "What happened to you?"

He cast his eyes downward in shame. "They kept on casting the Cruciatus Curse on me, all at once. It was too much to handle at one point that I was knocked out and just… fell apart."

"Oh, Frank," she sighed. "I'm sorry."

Frank waved his hand. "It's not your fault, Alice. You weren't the one who told the Death Eaters where we were."

"Yeah, but it's my fault that we didn't have our wands. We could've fought back, Frank."

He grabbed her shoulders and lightly shook her. "Look at me: _it's not your fault_," he repeated.

She sighed, letting it go because she knew that Frank would be stubborn about it.

"So what happened to you? Is Neville safe?"

Alice immediately burst into tears. Frank tightened his hold around his wife and tried his best to comfort her. Throughout her weeping and hiccuping, she managed to string along, "I— was— trying— to— protect— him— but— he…" she sniffled, trying to control her crying as best as she could. Once she calmed down, she finished with, "He… Neville sacrificed his life for me."

Frank's eyes bulged as they welled up. "He did?"

She nodded as she told him in detail about what happened. "The way he intercepted the curse with his little hand… it's a sight I wish to forget and one I will treasure forever. If I could just trade his life for mine, he would be alive right now."

He took her hands in his and squeezed them. "I won't pretend to know the challenges you're facing, but we are here together and it's enough for now."

Alice looked towards the windows of the gazebo at the evergreen garden outside. "Where are we, exactly? It's eerily quiet here."

Frank held out his hand and she took it. "Let's find out together."

* * *

They walked along the pathway hand-in-hand towards the garden she woke up in. The journey was quiet but comforting. Something about losing a child together with someone was a unique feeling, one that Alice never imagined experiencing herself. After arriving at her side of the garden and pointing out lilies and forget-me-nots to Frank, the ground beneath them shook.

Then, a familiar voice echoed in the chamber. "Frankie boy? Alice dear?" she timidly questioned. There was a beat of silence. "Oh no… is that?"

A deeper voice responded, which they couldn't understand.

"Poor Neville. It's a shame that we'll never know how powerful a wizard that boy could've been, given how gifted his parents were." A gust of wind rattled the plants. "There's some dust on you dear, probably from that dreaded flooring. But I guess it's more of a shame that they were so gifted that they're imprisoned inside their minds for the rest of their lives. I'd rather be dead than tortured into insanity."

Both of them turned to each other as everything clicked into place.

"Wha— how?" Frank stumbled. "I thought we… you know."

Alice nodded her head. "I thought we died too. But how are we here together?"

He thought for a moment, then his eyes lit up. "This area is across the Black Lake—"

"And yours is that woodsy area close to the Forbidden Forest!"

"We got married on Hogwarts grounds…"

"So our souls are united here, in this area that reflects us and where our union formed," she finished his sentence.

Frank cracked a smile, then shook his head in amazement. "There is a grace too powerful to name that led us here, isn't there? I mean, it's incredible we even survived all of that!"

"Well…" she doubtingly started. "We technically didn't survive. Our bodies are useless and no one knows we're in this garden sanctuary. They think we're staring at blank walls for the rest of eternity."

"Of course, because people push away what they don't understand." He lifted her hand to face level. "But they don't need to understand this. I'm just grateful that we're here together instead of staring at empty spaces. I'd rather learn about flowers with you over anything else." Frank kissed her hand and cheekily winked at her.

She chuckled, then halted with an expression filled with guilt. "I feel like we shouldn't joke right now. It feels wrong when he's not here with us."

He sobered, releasing her hand and hanging his arm around her shoulder. "It'll take time. At least we know we _have _the time to pay tribute to him."

Alice linked her hand with his slung-over one. "That'll be enough for now."


End file.
